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Magical Watercolor Backgrounds

Magical Watercolor Backgrounds

Hi Odd folks! Elle here with a quick tutorial on making some magical watercolor backgrounds. A short while ago, I shared an organization idea – inspiration pockets, and I thought it was time to put some of those ideas in practice and get a very magical Tobie card (featuring Tiny Magician Tobie) created.

You’ll need the following supplies: Watercolor paper (I used the smooth side of the Ranger watercolor paper), distress inkpad (I used Wild Honey), Kraft mat (if you don’t have one, you can use wax paper or anything with a slick surface that won’t absorb the ink), water (a mist bottle works great), a paper towel and liquid pearls (I used white opal). Optional: sparkly sequins and enamel dots.

Start by smooshing the ink into your craft mat. You want to have an inked area roughly the size of your background. Lightly spray it with water, then gently press your watercolor paper into it. You can lift the paper and press it down in various locations to add more ink or to create ink splotches. Once you’re happy with the way your panel looks, set it aside to dry completely. You can speed up this process by zapping it with a heat tool.

Next, let’s create some bokkeh-like effects. All you’ll need for this is some water – you can have it in your palm and flick it onto the background with your fingertips or you can use a paintbrush to drop water into specific areas. Let the water sit on the paper for a few moments, then blot it with a paper towel. You should see that the water has lifted up some of the color, and you’ve got round areas that are lighter than the rest of your background. You can repeat this process as many times as you like, and the longer you keep the water on the paper before blotting it out, the lighter those areas will get.

Lastly, it’s time for liquid pearls! I squeezed a dot of white opal liquid pearls onto my watercolor palette and added just a little bit of water with a paintbrush to thin it out. I loaded a medium paintbrush with the mixture and tapped it to create pearly splatters across the background (this part’s messy!). If you don’t have any liquid pearls, you can use white acrylic paint.

To finish it off, I also added in a few sparkly sequins and clear enamel dots.

You can use the same process to create simple backgrounds for your non-magical cards, too. In this pink background, I skipped sprinkling water to create the bokkeh effect and used a rose gold acrylic paint in addition to white opal pearls to create my splatters. It was the perfect modern background for Sweet Mae.

We’d love to see your take on this technique! Make sure you share in our Odd Girl facebook community!